Shocking Realization

I didn't think I would ever say this, but after reading the articles for last week and then working on a digital story in class, I miss teaching 5th grade! The thing I liked the most about 5th grade was teaching social studies because we had units and projects that the students were always working on. I realized I miss designing and planning projects for my students. I really want to plan a project for my students using one of these new technology ideas! I know I could plan something for my first graders, but it would be much easier for an upper elementary grade where they are more independent. I'm going to keep trying to find ways to get my first graders integrated with technology, but I guess I just wanted to write this entry to vent a little and admit I miss teaching upper elementary!

Ideas for the Classroom

I know I'm a little behind in the reading because I just finished the "See Jane Read...See Johnny Write" and "Writing the Book on Online Literature Circles", but I need to comment on them because I was really impressed with the teachers in those articles! I felt both articles had great examples of incorporating technology into already existing literacy activities. I thought making children's books through Power Point was an awesome project. After reading that article, it makes me want to go find a high school class and ask them to write books for my students! I was really impressed with the online literature circle study. There were two things that I really liked. First of all, I thought it was great how they used preservice teachers in the study. What a great way for those preservice teachers to get practice working with students, using technology, and asking students higher level thinking questions. Plus the middle school students got one-on-one attention which below level readers need. I found that to be the second thing I liked. I agreed with what one of the students involved in the study said when she explained how she liked having one person to comment with and really get into a good discussion with. Having just one person's blog or journal entry or response to respond to at a time might be a great way to ease students into discussion circles, online or in person.

Podcasts

Last week I had a roller coaster ride with technology. I was super excited about trying to make a podcast with my students. I decided to start with one reading group. I had each student in the group read two pages of the story we were working on and recorded their reading. I had downloaded Audacity to my computer so after I recorded my students I got them on to Audacity and I was so excited! I started to play it back to the students and was disappointed because all of the voices started talking at once instead of one after another like I wanted. During a break I played around with it and figured out how to cut and paste the recordings. It sounded like my kids were reading the book and I was so excited! I called my media specialist over to show off my work and we were both very excited. Then after school I invited my principal to come listen to it and I couldn't get the audio to work. I was so disappointed. I haven't been back at my computer for awhile now to work on it, but if anyone knows what I'm doing wrong I would appreciate suggestions! =)

New Idea

I get The Reading Teacher journal routed to me at school. I got the March 2008 issue this week and to my great delight one of the articles was entitled "Collaborate Literacy: Blogs and Internet Projects". I quickly found the article and began reading. The first part of the article was how a teacher used blogging in her classroom. The second part of the article was how a group of teachers worked together to create an Internet project for their classrooms. The whole article was very interesting, but I was especially captivated by the blogging idea. The teacher created a classroom blog hosted by Jefferson Bear. Jefferson Bear regularly posted questions for the kids in the class to respond to and provide feedback to their responses. I think this is a great idea. The questions that the kids respond to could be on a academic topic you are working on in class or a social issue that needs to be addressed. This kind of blogging wouldn't take much time out of the day because students would probably need to go to the computer lab about once a week or so to answer the question, plus they could work as partners if they wanted to. I also loved the fact that the classroom blog was hosted by "Jefferson Bear" and not the teacher. That reminded me of the teddy bear blogging that Deb and I responded to in an article earlier this semester. This idea seemed a little more practical for me and something I could actually see myself setting up in my classroom.